Page 16

CHAPTER 16

The problem with having kissed Costa earlier—well, one of the problems—was that Diana kept finding herself distracted with his mouth (the soft flex of his lips, the light dusting of red-gold stubble around them), or the grace of his hands as he passed the card to her.

“Shifter fighting rings?” she asked, looking up from studying the card and trying very hard to convince herself that the warmth lingering on it was because it had been in Vic’s pocket and not a slight vestige of Costa’s touch.

“Yeah, I know about them, but I didn’t realize they operated in my jurisdiction,” Costa said. His hazel-gold eyes were fixed on Vic, laser intent. “What do you mean, it’s your card?”

“Just what I said,” Vic said. “I was in that world for a while.”

Diana had passed the card to Cat Delgado, and now Vic reached out and took it back, holding it between two long, capable fingers. If Diana hadn’t already been gone for Costa’s hands, she might have been captivated by Vic’s; he had slim, graceful fingers and hands that she would have associated with a pianist or artist. But now that she thought about it, there were also scars, so faint that they barely caught the light against his tan skin.

“This is how fighters are identified,” Vic explained. He held up the card to show them the front with the blue outline again. “My shift form is a crocodile, so that’s how I’m identified in the underground. We didn’t use names.”

“Oh, that’s a crocodile,” Costa said. “I thought it was an alligator.”

“I thought it was a dinosaur,” Delgado said.

Vic rolled his eyes and grinned. He flipped the card over. “Contact info. Mine was a burner phone. Some people use email or various messaging apps. But it’s always anonymous and easy to ditch and get a new one in case law enforcement comes knocking—or if you want to get out.”

“What about those?” Diana said, pointing to the number at the corner.

“Win-loss record. It determines what kind of odds you get and how much money you make.” Another lopsided grin. “As you can see, I was pretty good.”

No kidding, if that was 36 wins to four losses. Costa clearly thought so too. “You won thirty-six fights? How often did you fight?”

Vic lifted a shoulder in a brief shrug. “Variable. At the bottom end of things, it’s loosely organized. A lot like bare-knuckle boxing rings or underground martial arts. Lots of guys, and more than a few women, who’ve slipped through the cracks in various ways, got out of prison or gangs, or just tough fighter types looking to pick up some extra cash.”

“So it’s not lethal?” Costa asked. “I’ve heard a few different things.”

“I’ve never heard of it at all,” Delgado said quietly.

Vic flipped the card around, palmed it, and laid it down on the coffee table. “Generally, no. Not lethal. Not on that level. But things change as you get deeper in.”

“Ah,” Costa said under his breath.

“If that’s all it was,” Vic said seriously, meeting each of their eyes in turn, “it’d be fine. Just some guys picking up beer money on the weekends. I wouldn’t have had the issues with it that I eventually ended up having.” He glanced swiftly toward the doorway to the kitchen, where Molly’s high-pitched voice could be heard cheerfully chatting with Costa’s aunts. “I hope that eventually I would have got out for her . But there was something else, something specific. What made me leave the rings was finding out that not everyone is there voluntarily.”

“ Ah .” Costa’s tone was different. Darker.

“You don’t really get exposed to this until you get deeper in,” Vic explained. “But once you start getting past the minor leagues, you get into the high-roller levels. There’s a lot of money floating around. Plenty of it trickles down to the players; once you start making your way to the big-league fights, you can earn a lot. But that’s also when you get into the level where rich assholes, often human ones, get their kicks making shifters fight for them and betting on it. And at that level, rare shifters start to be in great demand.”

“Like crocodiles?” Costa said.

“It’s a living. Or at least it was for a while.” Vic shrugged and flashed Costa a quick grin. “You’re a boar shifter, right? Honestly, you’d be perfect for it. Unusual shift type, formidable and tough, but easy to underestimate until they see you in action. You could’ve gone far.”

“Let’s get back to how some people aren’t there by choice.”

Vic lost his grin. “Yeah. That. I’d heard of it. People drugged, kidnapped. But I don’t think I really believed it until the first time I came up against a fighter in the ring who was being forced. Huge guy, turned into a grizzly bear. I figured I’d have a real fight on my hands. But he was desperate, making stupid mistakes.” His voice lowered, and he looked down at his hands, the card held between two fingers. One of those scars on the back of his hand, Diana realized, was a white crescent, a half moon of human teeth in a bite mark.

Taking a breath, Vic went on. “I could tell he was scared, and by that point I’d been in enough fights to have a good read on when people are willing to give up. One of the reasons I got as far as I did was because I always gave them an out, and lots of people will take it. But he wouldn’t. And wouldn’t. I started to realize I was going to have to really hurt him to get him to stop coming. And I ended up throwing the fight because of that, because I couldn’t figure out what was going on and I was starting to get scared that this was going to be the one everyone talked about, the one where you killed or really hurt someone. So I lost, and took a big hit in the game rankings because of it. A lot of people had bet on me heavily and weren’t happy. I think there’s a distinct chance some of them are still looking for me.”

“What did turn out to be going on with him?” Diana asked gently. “Did you ever find out?” Costa said nothing, but his body language was tense. Waiting. Delgado looked much the same.

“Blackmail.” Vic’s gaze was still on his hands. “They had his wife. I—I didn’t help. I never actually found out what happened to him, or her, and that still keeps me up some nights. I just got out.”

Costa said, “You gotta put on your own oxygen mask first. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

“Yeah, well, I turned my back on it and never looked back. I think part of why I joined the SCB later was so I could do some good to make up for what I didn’t do then.”

“I think you did what you could at the time,” Diana said. “You gave him a win that it sounds like he needed.”

Vic looked seriously at each of them in turn. “Look, I didn’t tell you guys that story for back-pats. I told you so you know what you might be up against. That red lion card is almost certainly a ring fighter’s card, maybe even one of the managers. There wasn’t anything written on it?”

Costa shook his head. “Blank.”

“Probably hadn’t been used. We all had an envelope full of them at all times. Keeping it on the plausibly deniable down low meant you could go into any copy shop and get a bunch run off without awkward questions.”

“I get that the animal is the shift type, but do the colors mean anything?” Diana asked.

“Yes, but it’s not universal. There isn’t one overall organization that controls everything; it’s on the level of local clubs that meet up in groups. In general, though, red and black were the high-level players, either top ranked fighters, or managers or big bettors. Mine being blue signals that I’m mid tier. Most clubs use green for new fighters.”

Costa’s mouth opened slightly. He looked at Diana, and she saw that his face was alight with the suppressed energy that meant his brain was racing behind the scenes.

In spite of her effort to resist, she was drawn to it. Costa was smart , and she had always loved that about him, especially since he worked hard to hide it behind his jock facade.

“Okay, so we got shifter fighting rings, and rare shifters are pure money-making gold on the fighting circuit. And we’ve got a little girl in there who is a shift type we’ve never seen before.”

Diana’s stomach lurched. “You think they found her and—and sold her?”

“No,” Costa said. “I think they made her.”

“ What ?” Delgado said.

“Nicole said there was a lab up in Seattle experimenting on shifters, right? What if someone’s trying to dream up custom blends, somehow combine different shift types into—I don’t know, shifter chimeras?”

“That’s insane,” Diana said flatly. “She’s a few months old. Someone’s got to be playing a heck of a long game to commission a custom gladiator who won’t even be able to fight for fifteen or twenty years.”

“Some people do play the long game,” Costa batted back. “And maybe she’s a test run, anyway. Maybe they’re working on being able to get it to work on adult shifters. Get you a bear who can fly and also breathe underwater.”

“That is evil ,” Diana said.

“Not if it’s voluntary,” Costa pointed out. “ I wouldn’t want it, but if somebody wants to get themselves a pair of wings or gills, whose cares? It’s sneaky and underhanded, maybe, if they’re springing it on someone in a fight, but it’s not evil. Doing it to people who didn’t consent, doing it to kids— that’s evil.”

“We don’t know for sure that’s what’s going on.”

“No,” Costa said. He turned to look at Vic. “But what do you think? You know the people at the top, at least by reputation, these high rollers you were talking about. Does this sound like something they’d do?”

“Yeah,” Vic said. He met each of their eyes in turn. “Yes, it does.”

* * *

None of the new arrivals had eaten, so Costa’s aunts brought out a generous lunch spread consisting of leftover tamales from the previous night (there was always way more food than anyone could eat in one sitting; it had been true of the family ever since Costa could remember), a huge bowl of salad, fresh bread, and farm-churned butter. The baby was passed around between many willing arms, including Molly’s.

Jenny and Jay turned up, and the two kids, who were similar in age, seemed to hit it off, at least if Jay offering to let Molly ride his pony was any indication. Molly seemed curious but fascinated.

The conversation remained light throughout lunch. Afterward, Molly was installed to do some online homework on the computer. The aunts waved off any offers of help cleaning up, while the agents went off together. Diana followed along, with a slight sense of exclusion that she knew was irrational but couldn’t help feeling anyway.

“Do you still have contacts in the fighting underground?” Costa was asking Vic.

“Not really, and I wouldn’t want to get in touch with them if I did. I didn’t exactly leave on great terms. That being said,” he added, “the way to get into the fighting rings in any major city is to start sending out feelers in the way you’d find any other illegal underground operation. Hang out in places that type of person hangs out, in this case gyms and boxing clubs, and the bars where the regulars go to socialize afterwards. You specifically want places that shifters go. I figure you know the shifter gyms in town, and Tucson seems big enough to have at least one.”

“Yeah,” Costa said. “I can’t ask you to, especially with the kid, but?—”

“I don’t want to stick my toe into that scene back in Seattle. Too close to where I fought before, and I’ve got too much to lose with Molly now. But here, this far from home, it ought to be safe for me to ask around a little. No one’s gonna know me.”

“That’d be great.” Costa grinned. “I’m simply too well known. I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that the chief of the local SCB division wants to start bare-knuckle brawling for petty cash.”

“What about her?” Vic asked, jerking a thumb at Diana.

“Her?” Costa asked, visibly alarmed.

“Yeah, her. Women do this too, you know.” He turned to Diana, addressing her directly. “You look like the type who’d be a natural. Capable and physical?—”

“No,” Costa said.

Diana had been gearing up for a no herself, but that brought her head around in a hurry. “What do you mean no , Quinn?”

“I mean no. Absolutely not.”

“Cesar Quinn Costa, can I talk to you in private ?”

She hustled him off to the porch.

“I didn’t realize we were having a negotiation,” Costa said.

“You can’t shut me out of this investigation. I know I’m not one of your agents, but that also means you can’t tell me what to do.”

“You really want to go poke around in the shifter fighting underground by yourself?”

“No,” Diana said sharply, “but I’m not going to sit here on the ranch, feeding chickens and riding horses while you and your agents investigate without me. They burned my house down, Quinn!”

“I know.” Costa put a hand on her arm. “How does this sound? We’ll let Vic ask questions, and you and I will drive out to the aviation charter company that owns the plane and see what they know. We can do it this afternoon. What do you think?”

Diana turned it over in her head, trying to feel out if it was a sop or a bribe, but it didn’t seem to be. It felt like a genuine peace offering. “All right,” she said. “Let’s do that.”